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Kaizen Time: Driving Continuous Improvement at Codeweavers

‘Kaizen’, from the Japanese word for ‘improvement’, is a concept central to Codeweavers’ philosophy as a learning organisation. It’s a mindset that underpins how we build, innovate, and deliver value. At its core, Kaizen is about continuous improvement: small, incremental changes that collectively make a big impact. For our Developers, this principle is embedded in the way we work every day in addition to the dedicated time weekly to work on self-improvement. 

One of the most practical ways we bring Kaizen to life is through Kaizen time. This dedicated time for developers is used to step away from their usual tasks and focus on improvement initiatives, whether that be enhancing their skills and knowledge, or working on projects within the platform outside of the usual sprints. This weekly time creates space for creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving that encourages self-improvement beneficial to our Developers, their teams, and ultimately, our customers.

What Makes Kaizen Time Valuable? 

Kaizen Time is designated for self-improvement, however it also has valuable aspects which help the business as a whole. It encourages cross-department collaboration, allowing team members to work with colleagues they wouldn’t normally see day-to-day, for example engineers pairing with representatives of product, UX, and customer success outside of their immediate team to spark fresh ideas and break down silos.  

For engineers, it also gives freedom to explore those “if only I had time” projects that often get side-lined by necessary sprint priorities, while encouraging unscheduled improvements that enhance performance, security, and usability outside the usual roadmap.  

Beyond product gains, Kaizen Time supports personal development by offering the opportunity to learn new technologies, refine coding and working practices, and grow professionally, making continuous improvement a shared journey for both our people and our platform. 

How do our Developer’s use their Kaizen time?  

Recent Kaizen Time projects at Codeweavers have delivered both technical improvements and team learning opportunities.  

One initiative focused on improving user experience through enhancing visibility for our Finance team. Through sending error import logs to a Slack channel, this project eliminated the need to check a third-party monitor and improved the structure of logs, providing an ‘early warning system’ that allows teams to get ahead of potential support tickets. Building on that, the current project moves logs closer to where imports are triggered, so teams, or ideally client users uploading the data, can manage everything from a single application, instead of juggling multiple systems and logins, significantly improving user experience.  

Beyond technical work, Kaizen Time has also been used for knowledge sharing, with Developers collaborating on presentations and learning sessions, including a talk on .NET’s garbage collection and a code kata to explore new problem-solving techniques. Kaizen time also serves to help the Developer’s Guild, encouraging team members to prepare talks or sessions with colleagues, reinforcing Kaizen’s role in fostering both innovation and professional growth. 

Kaizen Time Case Study: Benjamin Thirkill 

As a Junior Developer, Kaizen time has always incredibly useful for me from Day 1 of my role at Codeweavers. Within the first few months, this Kaizen time was a useful period for me to experiment with a new codebase and develop my skillset. 

Within the dedicated Kaizen time during my first few months, I enhanced the apps I was working in, undertook several LinkedIn learning courses and read Extreme Programming Explained with other Developers as part of the Book Club that ran during Kaizen time.   

Once I started to feel more comfortable in my role, Kaizen time gave me the opportunity to take full ownership of bigger parts of our platform without the pressure of external clients or deadlines. As a Junior, having a safe space to take the lead on a project and solve a business problem is a fantastic opportunity for growth.  

One specific project I have worked on is for user feedback. I noticed that we would benefit from gathering more feedback from our users, so I spent some of my Kaizen time creating a simple proof of concept to share with the wider business. It got picked up very quickly, and before I knew it, I was leading a new project, working with other Developers, product teams and designers to turn it into a ‘real’ feature. Through my Kaizen time, I was able to work with teams outside of my own, creating working relationships in other areas of the business, and gathering different perspectives to make this project a success. I learnt a metric tonne from working closely with our design teams and, together, we launched a useful feature - everybody wins! 

Kaizen time promotes a culture of curiosity and growth that empowers the Codeweavers team to innovate, learn and lead. By creating space for continuous improvement, we’re not only strengthening our platform and product offering, but also investing in the people behind it. Every small step forward adds up to big progress, and that’s what makes Kaizen a cornerstone of how we work at Codeweavers. 

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